Executor 2.0/executorv2.0.iso/pc/dos/extra/docs/maillist/text/archive.96/text0234.txt

Text File | 1996-07-25 | 7.6 KB | 156 lines

I saw this question go through here a while back, but never saw an answer.  I use
Executor on my Linux box here at work. (Linux version 1.2.13, for those who care) It
is also set up as a Apple File Server speaking AppleTalk via the UNIX Netatalk
package.

The question is this:  Does ARDI have any plans to have Executor be able to
interpret the contents of the subdirectory that is being exported for the other Macs
to use?  I'm not asking that executor be able to go out onto the net and read what
other Macs are exporing via AppleTalk (yet) ;), but just to interpret what is local
to my hard drive.

The problem is that it seems to use different mechanisms for handing the resource
and data forks than executor.  Whereas executor has "FILENAME" and "%FILENAME",
Netatalk seems to have the "FILENAME" and then a whole bunch of information in
subdirectores called such things as ".AppleDesktop" and ".AppleDouble" and "Network
Trash Folder".

Am I hoping for too much?  It would be wonderful to have my co-worker drop a Word or
Excel document onto my machine via AppleTalk and then just fire up executor and
double click on the docuement to launch the application.

Thanks,
Ron Passerini
Harvard University O.I.T.

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From: Earl Malmrose <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.emulators.mac.executor
Subject: Re: I keep getting NewVolume is damaged error
Date: 24 Jan 1996 04:25:28 GMT
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[e-mail] (Naresh Sharma ) writes:
> Hi,
>
> While trying to install illustrator 5.01 under 1.99q, Linux 1.3.56,
> I get the error "The selected disk named "NewVolume" is damaged. Please
> click
> switch disk to choose a different disk.

I get the same error with other apps - Illustrator isn't the only one. I
suspect its an incompatability with the Apple Installer.

--Earl

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From: [e-mail] (Scott Shuchart)
Newsgroups: comp.emulators.mac.executor
Subject: Re: Anyone gotten A-10 or F-18 2.0 demos to work??
Date: 24 Jan 1996 05:22:19 GMT
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In article <4e0ooo$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (ChessMan)
declares...

>  The program is
>essentially emulating System 6.0.7 which Apple stopped shipping with their
>computers over 3 years ago
[snip]
>The software runs without any control panels or inits - a 'real' mac user
has
>many of these little programs at the tip of their finger tips - and of
course
>it's not multi-processing aware - to run two applications; you must run it
>under windows and start it twice.  So it really doesn't have the  feel of a
>MAC - but hey - it plays that little Risk game  like a champ.

I don't actually disagree with any of this, but thought it might be a good
opportunity to remind people/clue in newcomers about the long-term ARDI
strategy, at least as I, a registered Executor customer with no other ties to
ARDI, understand it.

Right now, they're doing everything they can to get a commercially viable
version 2.0 out the door.  The revenue from that will fund development for
networking support, serial port support, better sound, more colors, etc.
This may raise yet more money.  But the longer-term goal, for version 3.0 or
so, I guess, is to make Executor a base onto which one will install a real
copy of System 7.x and run all MacOS functionality.

There are three or so obstacles:

1) Dirty/Clean engineering.  ARDI has figured out most of the Mac ROM
functionality through "clean-room" techniques; they haven't broken any
copyright or patent agreements to figure out what the ROMs do.  Finding out
the remaining undocumented features of the ROMs and other low-level features
involves hiring a new, "dirty" team of engineers to reverse-engineer and
otherwise mess around in Mac innards to find out such details. Those details
will be used to draft pure specifications, which will go to the clean team,
allowing them to cleanly implement that functionality.  A couple of
iterations of this, and the above goal could be reachable, at least in
theory.  So the 6.0.7 functionality is a way of *funding* System 7.x
droppability.

2) PowerPC.  Mat Hostetler, the syn68k (ARDI's Motorolla emulator) has
indicated that a PPC emulator won't be too much work, so Executor should
eventually run PPC binaries.  He's even said that developers could include
native x86 code, and that Executor could declare itself and allow Mac apps to
run natively on the x86 (or whatever other processor Executor is ported to)
if they were developed with such a "superfat" binary.  Tantalizing.  This,
too, awaits more moolah.

3) Copeland.  System 7.x won't be a poor OS laggard for too many more years
before Apple, provided it's solvent, releases Copeland, the next major
upgrade.  (I know it *sounds* like I'm starting a religious war, but I'd
rather not, as such wars on this group get intensely weird.  Best that we can
all just emulate each other, IMHO :-)).  Presumably, once (2) is
accomplished, (3) won't be a big problem, but there may be technical details
I don't know about.  There are also Common Hardware Reference Platform specs
I'm fuzzy on.

In other words, the 6.0.7 limitation isn't final.  BUT, and this is the
tricky bit, it's against ARDI's long-term interests to spend much time
hacking 7.x functionality now when it will eventually turn all that over to
Apple.  They need just enough System 7 support to get a customer base; after
that, lower-level issues have greater marginal utility.

Again, none of this is official, though the dirty/clean room stuff is
summarized from one of Cliff Mathews' posts.

Scott Shuchart
[e-mail]